16 Health Workers, Patients On Watch For Measles

Health authorities are monitoring six patients and six medical staff at Princess Margaret Hospital for symptoms of measles, after they came into contact with a radiographer who has been confirmed to have contracted the highly-contagious disease.

Three more people were diagnosed with measles on Wednesday, taking the total for the year so far to 43. Two of the three were airport workers, like many of the patients diagnosed earlier.

The Hospital Authority said the radiographer was probably infected by a patient while he was getting a chest x-ray last month, despite having had two doses of a measles vaccine.

The 23 year-old subsequently had contact with 45 patients, but all but six are considered to be unlikely to have been infected because they should theoretically have adequate protection against the disease because they’d been inoculated twice.

The Authority's Chief Infection Control Officer, Raymond Lai, says a measles outbreak at Princess Margaret is unlikely, and none of the patients or hospital workers the radiographer had come into contact with have any symptoms of the illness.

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